Voting for the Republican presidential nominee kicks off on Monday.
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After a back and forth between Trump and the network, the Republican presidential front-runner suddenly announced he would instead host a fundraiser for veterans at the same time as the debate.
Trump dominated social media during the debate, leading the entire Republican pack in Twitter mentions throughout the first half of the debate, according to data from social media analytics firm Zoomph.
“Roger Ailes and FOX News think they can toy with him, but Mr. Trump doesn’t play games”, his campaign said in a statement. The network rejected that demand.
Republican candidates itching for a turn at the spotlight redirected their blows from the absent Donald Trump to Texas Sen.
Fox News’ highest-rated program, as you might guess, was the first GOP debate of the 2016 campaign in August, which marked Donald Trump’s debut on a debate stage and sparked the controversy between him and the network that ultimately led to the NY billionaire boycotting Thursday’s event. He opened the debate with a pretty spot-on impression of the property mogul’s frequent insults of his opponents.
‘I’m a maniac and everyone on this stage is stupid, fat and ugly, ‘ Cruz said. And it worked. Every candidate besides the somnambulant Dr. Ben Carson seemed to be stretching their legs and picking up speed without Trump there to trip them up. That one included Trump.
During Thursday’s debate, Trump held an event in Des Moines aimed at raising funds for veterans.
He also explained he was skipping the debate because he felt Fox News had dealt with him unfairly. “You don’t want to change the wheels…”, Trump said today at his event in Nashua, New Hampshire.
“We have to stick up for ourselves as people and we have to stick up for our country if we’re being mistreated”.
The comedian continued the bit showing Trump contradicting himself on subjects like the people of Iowa, Hillary Clinton, and Fox News host Megyn Kelly. “Now that we’ve got the Donald Trump portion out of the way”.
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It was stated by Fox News on Friday that Trump requested a $5 million donation as “a quid pro quo”, which means “something for something”.
